These days, entertainment systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated. For example, some entertainment systems can utilize sophisticated electronic program guides (or “EPGs”) that permit user interactivity in a manner that greatly enhances the user's experience. For example, EPGs can permit a user to actually search for programs that are of interest to them, rather than having to wait until the channel of interest carrying the program scrolls by them. Additionally, entertainment systems often include some type of recording medium on which the user can have programs of interest recorded. For example, systems such as personal video recorders (PVRs) and digital video recorders (DVRs) can enable a user to record, to hard disk, different programs that are of interest to them. In some instances, the user need not know the specific channel and time that a particular program is broadcast in order for the system to record the program. That is, EPGs typically include metadata that is associated with the programs that occur in its listing. This metadata can provide the basis by which interesting and thorough searches can be conducted by the system, for the purpose of identifying and recording programs of interest to the user.
Yet, against the backdrop of these fairly sophisticated and, many times automated systems, problems can exist that result in a user experience that is not all that it could be. For example, it is a fairly simple matter to enable a user to schedule and record a series program such as Friends. The user can, for example, enter the title of the program via their system's user interface, and the system can then automatically record the Friends episodes as they are broadcast. There are instances, however, when there might be television programs that are related in some way to programs that are of interest to the user. Yet, their entertainment system's heuristics and searching mechanism may not necessarily pick up the program. For example, assume that a program called “The Making of Friends” is scheduled to air. This program may contain interviews with the various actors in the series, as well as historical information of interest. Yet, the metadata associated with this program might be sufficiently different from the metadata associated with the series Friends such that the entertainment system does not pick it up. Here then is an instance where a program that is likely to be of interest to the user escapes recording.
The above example is a fairly simple and specific example which illustrates a more general common problem associated with current automated entertainment systems. Specifically, by virtue of the fact that entertainment systems are computerized, they typically do not “think” like humans. Thus, decisions that would be very easy for a human to make (e.g. “let's record The Making of Friends because I really like the series Friends”) can be very difficult for an automated system to make.
Accordingly, this invention arose out of concerns associated with providing improved entertainment methods and systems.